Tag Archives: nichols

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Elegant 1920s — 1930s antique ‘Art Deco’ Chinese Rug with some wear across the wool pile. Side cords have wear and a few small repairs, which is perfectly normal for an antique rug. The fringes are short with minor end wear–especially at the corners.

The rug was professionally ‘end-stopped’ (a button stitch is sewn by hand along the ends) some time ago, and this has protected the weft threads from any kind of unraveling.

I was told the rug was washed and it seems clean with no odors or soiling. The primary colors are silver gray, a light taupe, and indigo blue in the border. There are highlights of violet and daubs of magenta in the foliage. A few butterflies wing their way across the open field (one shown in closeup).

Despite the age and scattered wear, this is a rugged, well-made rug that can handle high foot traffic. Nichols’ carpets and their kin are well known for their resilience.

This is a perfect rug for someone comfortable with an antique that shows use, but has aged gracefully.

Walter Nichols is the best known manufacturer of these Chinese rugs, but other companies were weaving very similar high quality rugs for the American home in the 1920s and 1930s. They are highly collectible today and noted for their ironclad durability. (One jaundiced rug ‘expert’ lamented that they are difficult to eradicate because they are virtually indestructible.)

“The Nichols name has come to be used almost synonymously with the ‘Chinese deco’ rugs manufactured in Tientsin in the 1920s and 1930s. Nichols did not originate the Chinese deco style, but he did a great deal to popularize it and to maintain its high standards of manufacture.”

Of course, after the expanded Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the enlargement of the Second World War, and then the Communist Revolution in mainland China in 1949, the era of the Nichol’s rugs ended. However, they continued to exert an influence on rug production in the People’s Republic of China.